but this really made me think long and hard... could it be possible that the halving of the block reward impacts the price of bitcoin in significant ways? i mean when you fast forward 4 years after the blockchain was born, in 2013, it went from being as low as ~$14 to astonishingly rising as high as $1,100+ all within the same year. and fast forward another 4 years to 2017, we see another astonishing jump in the price, with lows being under $900 and highs surging past $19,000 in the same year.
You are not wrong - the halvening has always had an effect on the price because the supply of new coins dumped on the market drops each halvening. so the sell pressure drops.
That's the simple fact of it. The halving definitely influences the price. The only disagreement I have is about how 2018 will go, I believe that again the price will shoot up with the next halving but I do suspect that we'll experience some growth before then. Bitcoin and the whole cryptocurrency market are much more mainstream and in a stronger position to grow than they were a few years ago.